Voice of Revolution

Undemocratic Institution Guarantees Power for Establishment Parties

Primaries Show Need for New Institutions Where the People Decide

The New Hampshire and Michigan primaries, like the Iowa caucuses before them and the Nevada caucuses coming up, are bringing to the fore the character of the primaries as excluding independent candidates, while making it appear that people are choosing the candidates for president. In New Hampshire, in particular, almost half of all registered voters, 45 percent, are registered as Independents. This means they have made the choice to not support Democrats or Republicans. Where were their candidates? How is it that Independents are forced to either vote for Republicans or Democrats or not vote at all? The set up is such that those independents running for president usually can only meet ballot requirements for the general elections themselves, not for both primaries and the general election. There are a few exceptions (such as California and Illinois), but these too required massive efforts by independents to collect signatures within a small window of time. So while attention is focused on candidates of the Democrats and Republicans, people have little or no knowledge of the candidates from other parties or those running as independents — including the voters registered as Independents!

It is also the case that even within the Democrats and Republicans, the main role of the primaries is to quickly eliminate candidates. Even though a tiny fraction of the population nationwide had voted in Iowa and New Hampshire (which together have about 4.5 million people out of a country of 300 million) three of the Democratic candidates (Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd and Bill Richardson) have already withdrawn. Lack of money is given as a main reason. The people have not been asked as to whether they think the various candidates should quit. More importantly, they were not asked to nominate these candidates either. Why not? Why no voice of the people in selecting the candidates? This could actually yield candidates people are for, rather than those they give votes to as an expression of what they are against.

In addition, in Michigan, the Democratic National Committee — that is, the gang at the top of the Democratic Party — decided that the Michigan Democratic primary would not count. They did this in response to the state legislature deciding to move their primary before February 5. Why should the Democrats decide that a public primary does not count? Michigan, the first larger state to vote, and one where the issue of the manufacturing crisis and poverty are vital problems, is simply excluded through dictate by the DNC. How is this democratic? The Michigan experience reveals that the current institutions for elections, like the primaries, are controlled not by the people, not by those who vote, but by the Democrats and Republicans. They decide who can and cannot be on the ballot and with what rules, they decide when primaries are held and in what order, they decide if a primary vote counts or not. And clearly they make decisions that benefit themselves as establishment parties and that impose a system that guarantees one or the other comes to power, and indeed that only those candidates backed and financed by the rich are even considered viable.

The monopoly media then back up this undemocratic exclusion of the people, other parties and independent candidates, by dictating who is a “viable” candidate among the Democrats and Republicans. Dennis Kucinich, for example, with the strongest stand against the Iraq war among the candidates, was excluded from the debates in Nevada. And in a situation where polls are taken endlessly, was there a poll to see whether the people wanted candidates excluded? Of course not. This is supposedly the “right” of the major networks.

The actions of the parties and the monopoly media are contrary to what the primary vote so far is actually showing. What stands out so far is the rejection of the establishment by the voters. In Iowa, voters expressed their rejection by giving more votes to Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, both recognized as candidates that are not the machine politicians of the establishment. Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Mitt Romney for the Republicans are such candidates, as is Republican Rudy Giuliani. John McCain, who got the most votes among Republicans in New Hampshire, is seen as a maverick. John Edwards, of the Democrats, is striving to position himself as a non-machine candidate, but is having a difficult time doing so given he was the Democrat’s vice-presidential candidate in 2004. To the degree that he is seen as anti-establishment is a main basis for his votes. Certainly, Edwards voters, like those for Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson, are more likely to vote for Obama than for Clinton. Already, the New Hampshire vote showed that Obama and Edwards together had a majority, of 53 percent, against Clinton’s 39 percent. And Clinton will continue to have difficulty.

This was further seen in Michigan. Obama and Edwards, bowing to the demands of the DNC to not campaign in Michigan, withdrew their names from the ballot. Clinton got about 55 percent, but 40 percent of voters cast their ballots for “uncommitted.” (Michigan is actually one of the view states that included an “uncommitted” or “none of the above” as a choice on the primary ballot.) In Wayne County, home to Detroit, the split between Clinton and “uncommitted” was about even. Kucinich, who also remained on the ballot, was third with 4 percent statewide and in some areas, like Wayne and Washtenaw County, got 10 percent of the vote. But this is not news and does not count as the media and establishment parties have already dismissed him. In this manner, even the limited role people do have to vote, and chose to vote for Kucinich, is also being dismissed.

As people organize to give expression to their anger and rejection of the establishment and their parties using the primaries, it is also an opportunity to seriously discuss alternatives — why not reject the establishment method of choosing candidates? In this time where the necessity for change is making itself more sharply felt, it is also time to reject a situation where the two establishment parties decide the entire set-up, including not only the primaries and which parties and candidates and now even states participate, but also the counting of votes and who can, and more significantly, cannot register to vote.

The existing method of choosing the candidates also reveals that it is a set-up to keep the people from selecting candidates from among their peers and electing them to office. It is designed not only to keep other parties and independents out, it is designed to insure that people’s conception of choosing does not include themselves — does not include selecting candidates from among your fellow workers, or students, or seniors, and so forth. Indeed, the conception imposed by the rich against such action is so ingrained that independent candidates that do come forward are not considered electable. And this is true even when they take principled stands that better represent the people than any of the candidates of the Republicans and Democrats.

The rejection of the establishment thus also poses the need to discuss this problem, of the necessity to develop mechanisms of the people, in their workplaces, schools, communities, seniors homes, to develop election institutions where the people decide all of these matters, including choosing their own candidates and getting them elected. Let us use the primaries as an opportunity not only to express our rejection of the establishment but also to discuss the change required to empower the people as decision makers in the elections.

As well, there are also now the first hints of fraud in the form of vote counting. There are some indications in New Hampshire that Clinton got more votes than were actually cast for her and Obama got fewer. The combined difference in the votes would have given Obama the election by about the same percentage as predicted by the polls. While there are other possible reasons, the hint of more fraud, like the primaries themselves, is again calling into question the legitimacy of the existing set-up. Even the most basic requirement of counting the votes cannot be provided, let alone the right to decide the candidates and elect your own peers.

The existing electoral system blocks the people from power by guaranteeing that the establishment parties come to power and stay in power, despite their refusal to submit to the demands of the majority. It is not the majority deciding, not at any step of the election process, including the final vote for president. Democratic institutions demand that the majority actually decides. The time for change has indeed come, change that empowers the people themselves.

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Ruling Class Conflicts

Ruling Circles Consider “Third Party” Bid

Just before the Iowa caucuses, the Washington Post reported on a plan among the ruling circles to have a “third party” campaign for president. New York City’s multi-billionaire Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was put forward as a potential candidate. He, along with a group of influential Democrats and Republicans, held closed-door meetings in Oklahoma, along with a public forum at the University of Oklahoma on January 7.

What stood out in the report, and those that followed the meeting, was the emphasis the group gave to their demand for a “government of national unity.” The group says that they will first attempt to convince the presidential candidates for the Democrats and Republicans that they must “build an administration that seeks national consensus.” If they do not outline concrete plans for this “government of national unity,” the group is threatening to run Bloomberg as an independent candidate.

As an indication of what “national unity” means, Bloomberg is known among New Yorkers as “Mr. Police-State” for his executive rule, vicious attacks on rights and use of force against the people. A recent report by the New York Police Department Intelligence Division, for example, served as the blueprint for the “Homegrown Terrorism” bill currently in Congress — a bill that makes radical thinking a crime and gives police authority to intervene where they believe a person that may be a potential terrorist begins the process of radicalization. According to the report, “radical incubators” include bookstores, libraries, Internet cafes, and so forth. This police terrorism is already being implemented in New York City under Bloomberg.

The letter inviting participants to the meeting goes on to say, “Today we are a house divided. We believe that the next president must be able to call for a unity of effort by choosing the best talent available — without regard to political party — to help lead our nation.” Commenting on the current campaigns, it said, “More empty debate will produce neither a national consensus for governing nor a president who can successfully tackle these threats to our nation’s future.” Among the threats listed are terrorism and the federal debt.

Former Senators Sam Nunn, of Georgia, and David Boren, of Oklahoma, both Democrats, were main organizers of the meeting. Nunn currently chairs a main think tank of the ruling circles, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee while in office. He too is considering running for president, and has also indicated he would accept a position as vice-president with Bloomberg heading the ticket. He said, “We have clearly had an erosion of our credibility and our capacity to lead.” He claims, “Most people are in the middle of the road — although they may stay in the left lane or the right lane.” He added, “The very extreme activists are in the ditch on both sides, and that’s where the money is.” Boren said that a “government of national unity” is needed to overcome the current partisan divisions in a time of national challenge.

William S. Cohen, former Republican senator from Maine who was defense secretary under Democrat Bill Clinton was also a participant. He plans to join Nunn in sponsoring a series of seminars on “key topics,” like the debt, national service, and foreign policy. He said, “The important goal we all share is to get government back to the center.” John Danforth, Republican and former Senator from Missouri said, “My party is appealing to a real meanness and an irresponsible sense of machismo in foreign policy. I hope it will be less extreme, but I’m an American before I’m a Republican.” The appeal being made in the name of unity is to submit to “one nation” of by and for the rich and their plans for war and fascism.

Others involved include former Democratic Senators Bob Graham (Florida), Gary Hart (Colorado) and Charles S. Robb (Virginia). Among the Republicans are current Senator Chuck Hegal (Nebraska), former party chairman Bill Brock, and former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman.

Senator Hegal has already announced that he would accept a vice-presidential position with a Democratic candidate. Bloomberg is pursuing the possibility of a third party run and has said he is prepared to spend $1 billion of his own money to mount such a campaign, including the machinery needed to get him on the ballot in all 50 states and D.C. A Bloomberg-Nunn ticket would serve to bring a Republican and Democrat (and a southerner and northerner) on the ticket.

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Commentary

Call by Rulers for Unity Government and Possibilities of Unity Party

The efforts among influential members of both the Democrats and Republicans to possibly organize a “third party” candidacy for the president poses the possibility that a “third party” of the ruling class will emerge with these elections. The politicians involved, with former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia a main organizer, are calling for a “government of national unity.” They emphasize, “The next president must be able to call for a unity of effort by choosing the best talent available — without regard to political party — to help lead our nation.” As one of the Republicans active with the group put it, “I am an American before I am a Republican.” The group claims to represent the “middle of the road,” and that “extremists” are harming the two parties, saying, “the very extreme activists are in the ditch on both sides” of the road. A “national unity” government that is “centrist” is what is needed to restore credibility and contend with the challenges “we face as a nation.”

The group has said they will first attempt to convince whoever emerges as the candidates for president to put forward their plans for such a national unity government. If the candidates do not, and continue with “empty debate,” they will back an independent candidate with New York Mayor Bloomberg as top of the list. It stands to reason then that they will create a “national unity” party that includes the “centrist” Republicans and Democrats. Or conceivably they will say it is political parties themselves that are the problem and what is needed is a “government of national unity” comprised of the “best talent available.” Whether such a government of national unity would even need elections is not addressed. Either way, it is a significant and dangerous development.

What is meant by “national unity”? The group is putting forward that the problem is one of disunity and gridlock between Republicans and Democrats, caused by “extremists.” The task then is isolating the “extremists.” Where do the people and their demands for rights and an end to aggressive wars lie in all of this? If Bloomberg is any indicator, all those who do not submit to the united plans of the ruling circles for fascism and war, submit to the chauvinism of the ruling circles and their drive for empire, are “extremists” as well. The aim is not to put the country on the side of progress, as the people are demanding, but to secure the rule of the rich at a time when their system is in deepening crisis and losing all legitimacy.

The ruling circles are concerned, in part, about how best to restore their legitimacy in the eyes of the American people. The 2000 elections robbed them of their ability to justify their rule on the basis of the popular vote. The 2004 elections reinforced their illegitimacy. In numerous demonstrations, people expressed the deep concerns of all with banners saying, “Illegitimate President, Illegitimate War”; “U.S. Democracy is a Fraud”; “Failed System” and similar stands. The 2006 elections compounded the legitimacy problem, as voters gave the Democrats a majority, demanding an end to the war and a stand against torture, and got nothing. There is now great anger with both parties and general rejection of the establishment.

The Democrats, in particular, have the job of maintaining illusions about the elections and of blocking any break with the chauvinism of the ruling circles — a chauvinism that justifies U.S.-style democracy, with all its aggression and empire building, as being the best model for all. But they are not succeeding.

Hillary Clinton is supposed to be the spokesperson for the “centrists” but is having difficulty pulling it off. Even with the gains made in New Hampshire, the votes against her, as expressed in the votes for Obama and Edwards, are far greater (a majority of about 53 percent when combined). Obama, for his part, is working hard to demonstrate that he can be the champion of the ruling class and their demand for a “national unity government.” In his speech in Iowa and those in New Hampshire, he emphasized, “You came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say we are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come.” In this manner he echoes the call for a “unity government” without regard to political party, while also attempting to draw the people into support for such a government. His slogan “Yes we can,” serves the same purpose — to hide the actual divide that exists between the working class and people, united with the world’s people, against the U.S. imperialists. But can he pull this off — or will the people use this opportunity to strengthen their demands that any politician who wants their vote must reject the establishment, not assist it in further plans for war and fascism? The fight is far from over. More than this, if Obama does emerge as the vote-getter, few believe the Democrats will allow him to win the nomination. How then are they to block him without also completely eliminating any shadow of a doubt about the fraud of U.S.-style democracy? Enter then, the proposal for an independent candidate for president, with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg a possible candidate. The rulers put their weight behind such a candidacy, and potentially a “unity party.” They effectively abandon Obama and the Democratic Party, while still leaving the possibility of people voting for him, while ensuring their candidate wins. This plan is currently being held in reserve, but is definitely in the works, as the January 7 meeting shows.

The plan for a “national unity government” also reveals the concerns within the ruling class that the conflicts among them are growing so intense that they threaten civil war. The elections are failing not only to maintain illusions in the system as a democratic one but also in terms of resolving these conflicts. Already, especially on the Internet and among bloggers, there is speculation as to whether President George W. Bush will create an “October surprise” by declaring a “national emergency” of some kind that requires postponing the elections. As well, a main thrust of the group calling for a “unity” government is that the two existing parties have been overrun by the “extremists,” unable to contend with the “challenges the nation faces.” How then to go forward with the plans for fascism and war? One answer is consolidation of the most reactionary forces in a “national unity government,” with or without political parties and elections.

It is a dangerous scenario that requires the vigilance of all concerned. Fascism commonly comes forward under the banner of national unity, a concept used to split Americans from the world’s peoples. Elimination of political parties, and particularly repressing the fight for a political party representing the interests of the working class, a communist party, is part of this. Conditions require advancing the fight of the working class and people for their own electoral system that empowers the people themselves to govern and decide, while blocking these efforts of the ruling class to impose war and fascism here and abroad .

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Primary Concerns

Robert C. Koehler, Tribune Media Services, January 10, 2008

As the breathless sports coverage of the presidential primaries bursts around me this morning, I am doing my best to resist surrendering to the contrived drama about “comeback kids” and the flying shrapnel of numbers and hold onto my troubled skepticism about the electoral process, or at least most of it.

First of all, before we get too enthusiastic about feminist solidarity or wax knowingly about New Hampshire Democrats’ traditional soft-heartedness toward the Clinton family, let us ponder yet again the possibility of tainted results, which is such an unfun prospect most of the media can not bear to remember that all the problems we have had with electronic voting machines — and Diebold machines in particular, which dominate New Hampshire polling places — remain unsolved.

Did the Hillary campaign really defy the pollsters? She had been trailing Barack Obama by 13 percentage points, 42 to 29, in a recent Zogby poll, as election watchdog Brad Friedman pointed out. And the weekend’s “rapturous packed rallies for Mr. Obama,” as the New York Times put it, “suggested Mrs. Clinton was in dire shape.”

So when she emerged from the Tuesday primary with an 8,000-vote and 3-percentage-point victory over Obama, perhaps — considering the notorious unreliability, not to mention hackability, of Diebold machines — the media might have hoisted a few red flags in the coverage, rather than immediately chalk the results up to Clinton’s tears and voter unpredictability. (Oh, if only more reporters considered red flags patriotic.)

The fact is, whatever actually happened in New Hampshire voting booths on Tuesday, our elections are horrifically insecure. For instance, Bev Harris, of the highly respected voting watchdog organization Black Box Voting, recently wrote that the Diebold 1.94w optical scan machines used in some 55 percent of New Hampshire precincts (representing more than 80 percent of the state’s voters) are “the exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County (Florida)” a few years ago. They have not been upgraded; the security problems have not been fixed. National, or at least media, denial about this situation does not say much for the strength of our democracy.

The other recent chill I felt over the state of that democracy was symbolized by the gleeful thumbs up that ABC president David Westin gave his staff 20 minutes before airtime for Saturday’s candidate debate, when word came in that a judge had ruled against Dennis Kucinich’s last-minute lawsuit to gain inclusion in the debate. The staff cheered, the Hollywood Reporter noted with barely concealed satisfaction, as though to say: A-list celebrities only, Dennis!

The exclusion of Kucinich from the debates, and the mainstream media’s indifference to and/or tacit approval thereof, strikes me as part of the same phenomenon as their inability to incorporate news of ongoing voting-machine insecurity into actual election coverage.

The unacknowledged backstory of the election process, you might say, is that it is primarily entertainment; and downer stuff like unreliable numbers or a short, pedestrian candidate who insists on talking about real — and possibly unpleasant — issues just do not belong in the package presented to the public. No grit, please! No matter the current administration has trashed the Constitution, dragged us into a disastrous war, abandoned New Orleans, blown national security and made torture fashionable, this election is about . . . feelings, personal drama.

So with Kucinich out of the debates and out of mainstream consciousness, the simmering concerns of far more than 1 percent of the population are also excluded from these debates that, after all, are about the nation’s and the world’s future. I was dreading the onset of the primary season because I knew it would not be what it affected to be: something, uh, related to reality.

Thus impeachment, that unpleasant topic, is not something any of the top-tier, media-vetted Democratic candidates will be talking about, no matter that it has far more support among the electorate than the impeachment of Hillary’s husband ever did. And the Iraq war itself is reduced to a yes or no question, with no discussion of the bloated U.S. defense budget on the table, or the role of aggressive neocon-style militarism in our national security. Westin’s thumbs up signaled media exclusion of all such matters from the national debate.

That said, I acknowledge taking wary heart in Obama’s remarkable road to national prominence and (hypothesizing fair elections) his reasonable shot at the Democratic presidential nomination. He is energizing African-Americans and many other disaffected voters, and just maybe, as he ascends to the highest levels of power, he really intends to represent them.

Robert Koehler, a Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.

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Space Invaders: Five Million Aliens for Hillary

Will José Crow Voter ID Laws Pick Our President?

Greg Palast

State Representative Russell Pearce of Mesa, Arizona has warned us: “There is a massive effort under way to register “aliens” in this country.”

How many? According to the Congressman’s office, there are five million: Democrats, he says, who are not good Americans — they are Mexicans!

Really?! Holy Cow! The Senator has uncovered a conspiracy to flood the voter rolls with Brown Hordes who have swum the Rio Grande just for a chance to vote for Hillary Clinton?!

Thank the Lord for vigilant citizens like Senator Pearce. His efforts, along with the work of other patriotic (Republican) politicians, successfully stopped 300,000 voters from obtaining ballots in 2004 — because these voters had brought the wrong ID to the polls. New ID laws in Arizona and half a dozen states blocked these voters at the polling-house door. Others with “wrong” ID’s were handed what are called ‘provisional’ ballots — which were then not counted.

On Wednesday, the Republican majority on the U.S. Supreme Court indicated it would vote to uphold these new voter ID requirements. And just in time. If not for these new ID laws, warns Senator Pearce and other Republicans across the nation, a dark wave of “aliens” would vote again in our upcoming Presidential election.

Or maybe not. Maybe there are not five million illegal voters for Hillary or Obama or Edwards. Maybe there are just five hundred. Maybe there are none. I called Senator Pearce’s office to get a couple of the names of these illegal voters. After all, it should be easy as pie to catch them: they have to give their names and addresses to register and vote. Odd thing, out of five million illegal registrants, the Senator, after a week of looking, couldn’t provide me the name of one. Not one.

Another Republican politician, this one in New Mexico, the sponsor of the voter ID law there, said on the floor of the State Legislature that she had the names of two illegal voters. Well, that’s a start. I called her, Representative Justine Fox-Young (yes, that’s her name, and she has the ID to prove it).

Q. Justine, you have uncovered felony criminals [illegal voting is a jail-time crime in every state]. Do you have the names?

A. Oh, yes!

Q. Really? Wow! Did you turn these names over to the U.S. Attorney?

A. Well, no ….

Q. You had evidence of a crime and you did not have the bad guys arrested?

A. Not exactly ….

Fox-Young promised to send me the names of the illegal voters. The names never arrived. But shortly thereafter, based on her claim, the Legislature passed, and Governor Bill Richardson signed, a voter ID law certain to knock out Hispanic citizens. (In fairness to Richardson, I should note that he forced the Republicans to drastically alter their bill.)

Our investigations team talked to some of New Mexico’s allegedly illegal voters. In 2004, the Catholic Church organized a bus and caravan to take newly registered Chicanos to a Roswell, New Mexico polling station. The white officials turned away several of the young Hispanics for presenting the “wrong” ID. Maybe the middle initial on the voter form was missing from the driver’s license, or “Jr.” was added. No perfect match, no vote: a gotcha! set of rules that seemed to apply only to voters of a darker hue.

One of the rejected young Chicanas said she would not return to try again to vote; one round of humiliation was enough. “They do not want me to vote there anyway,” she said. And they do not.

But hey, what is wrong with requiring voter ID? I can give you a million reasons. Since 2004, when 300,000 citizens lost their right to vote because of ID challenges, the number of states that have passed voter ID laws has quadrupled. Expect the challenges to quadruple as well, to more than a million in the upcoming 2008 presidential election. Do ID challenges make a difference? In New Mexico, George Bush’s victory over John Kerry by 5,900 votes can be completely accounted for by minority provisional ballots rejected. ID was key.

In Louisiana, the law says voters may be asked to produce a photo ID. A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice discovered that Black voters are only one-fifth as likely to have photo ID’s as white voters. (That figure may be optimistic, as Justice took the survey before Black voters’ ID washed away with Hurricane Katrina.)

In New Mexico, in Louisiana, in Georgia, in Alabama and in Florida, it is the same story. It is not a random set of voters who lose out on ID challenges; it is voters of color.

Forty years ago, the Jim Crow era ended when biased impediments to voting were struck down by the courts and Congress: poll taxes, “literacy” tests, citizenship tests that blocked Blacks more than whites. From that time until now, almost every state has accepted your signature matched to prior records as proof you are a legal voter. Now we are going to change this system to prevent the crime of folks voting more than once and the crime of “aliens” voting. The odd thing about these crimes: they virtually do not exist. Yet to prevent crimes that are not committed, we are allowing elections officials to commit a greater crime: stopping legal voters, especially new, young, Hispanic voters, from having their piece of our democracy.

Who was behind these viciously undemocratic, racist José Crow attack on brown-skinned voters? His initials are Karl Rove. In 2006, I smelled out the link to Rove, then White House political chief, when I reached out to the U.S. Attorney for New Mexico.

That U.S. Attorney, David Iglesias, had indeed investigated the “illegal” voters identified by Fox-Young, working from a list of 150 sent to him by Republican officials. After marching all over the mesas with the FBI, Iglesias found exactly zero cases to prosecute.

So, finding folks innocent, Iglesias did not arrest them. That was a mistake, at least for his career. Karl Rove, visiting New Mexico, heard from the state’s Republican Party chiefs that Iglesias was not bringing prosecutions and would not continue the witchhunt for “illegal” voters. Iglesias contends that Rove took the Republican complaint to the Oval Office. There, a man who goes by the alias, “The Decider,” decided to fire Iglesias and other U.S. Attorneys who would not agree to phony prosecutions of innocent voters.

Iglesias told me, “This voter fraud thing is the bogeyman. It was designed to scare up, rile the [Republican] base. I looked into [the fraud allegations] ...We did not find the evidence.”

I met with Iglesias at the park overlooking the Statue of Liberty in New York. The wistful ex-prosecutor, who has returned to his former post with the Navy as a JAG lawyer, said, “Looking back, I mean I feel like I was set up; that they really felt that I would go forward with some half-baked prosecutions and hope for a guilty plea. That is not what a legitimate federal prosecutor does.” (Rove will not respond to BBC’s requests for his views, nor respond to a subpoena from Congress to explain his involvement in the firings.)

Whatever Rove’s political motives, I did have to ask if there is a legitimate reason for these new ID laws. I challenged the leader of the New Mexico Catholic Charities voter drive, Santiago Juarez, to answer Ms. Fox-Young’s charge that, without voter ID, his new citizens could steal elections by voting more than once using someone else’s name. Santiago replied, “How do you organize thousands of people to vote twice? Hell, it is hard enough organizing them to vote once!”

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Michigan Primary

Democrats Discount Votes While Romney Gains for Republicans

Michigan was the first of the larger states, with a population of more than 10 million, to hold its primary. Voter turn out was estimated at 20 percent. Michigan is also a state where the issue of the manufacturing crisis and growing poverty are serious and growing concerns. Michigan has lost jobs for six years running. In the last five years, almost 310,000 jobs have been lost, with the industrial sector suffering a decline of 25 percent. Detroit has the highest levels of poverty in the country. Republican Mitt Romney at least spoke to the problem, promising a return of all the jobs. He has yet to put forward his solution to meet this promise. He also promised the auto monopolies $20 billion in federal funding and relief from environmental standards for miles per gallon and health care costs. These are far more likely to be delivered. At the same time, Romney attempted to present himself as someone outside “Washington politics.” He himself gave this as the reason he secured the most votes.

Romney, like Hillary Clinton, is attempting to position himself as at least distant from the establishment. The fact that both are increasingly presenting themselves in that manner is an indication of the continuing strength of the voters in using the primaries to express their rejection of the establishment. Consistent with this, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul continue to significant votes, with Huckabee securing about 16 percent and Paul close to 7 percent.

The Democratic Party primary was dismissed by the Democrats before a single vote was cast. The Michigan State Democratic Party moved the primary up to before February 5, in effort to give greater influence to Michigan and hence the state party. The Democratic National Committee (DNC), the gang running the Party and now dictating to the state parties, said no. The DNC then punished Michigan by saying its delegates would not be seated at the national convention. They demanded that all the candidates withdraw. Barack Obama and John Edwards and others who have already dropped out did. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel refused and continued to campaign in Michigan, while Hillary Clinton supposedly “forgot” to withdraw. She was not sanctioned by the DNC for this.

Michigan, unlike many states, includes an “uncommitted” line on the primary ballot. Clinton secured 55 percent of votes cast, with uncommitted at 40 percent and Kucinich at 4 percent. In Wayne County, home of Detroit, and Washtenaw County (30 miles west of Detroit, also mainly industrial and including the university town of Ann Arbor), the uncommitted and Clinton were about even at 45 percent and Kucinich received about 10 percent of the vote. Even so, Kucinich was then eliminated from the Nevada Democratic debate by NBC, as a “non-valid” candidate. About 75 percent of African Americans voted for uncommitted, recognized as a continuing rejection of Clinton as the establishment candidate.

What stands out as most significant about the primary is the ability of the national committees of the two parties to simply not count votes, in a public primary. The Republicans also sanctioned Michigan, but limited it to cutting their delegates in half, while allowing candidates to campaign.

The Democrats and Republicans have the option of deciding their candidates among party-members in party conventions. They chose instead to have public primaries. Why then do the parties get to decide whether votes count? Where is decision-making by the public? For the two parties and the electoral system as a whole, involving the public serves to give the appearance that voters are choosing, when they are not, while also hiding the fact that the parties themselves have very few members. People are simply registered as Democrats or Republicans, with the large majority not members of the parties. Much like the executive rule being instituted, the top dogs in the leadership of the two parties are also indicating that they will decide, not the state parties and not the voters.

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New Hampshire Primary

Information on Voter Turnout and Ballot Counting

About 526,600 ballots were cast in the New Hampshire primary, breaking the previous record for a presidential primary of 396,385 in 2000. Fifty-five percent of the ballots cast were in the Democratic race, and 45 percent in the Republican. About 45 percent of New Hampshire’s registered voters are registered as Independents. Independent candidates are generally blocked from ballot access, so these voters are forced to vote for either Democrats or Republicans or not vote in the primaries. It is estimated that about 40 percent of registered voters participated in the primary. The state has a population of about 1.3 million, about half of Iowa’s 3 million.

According to news reports, no one received a majority of votes cast. Candidates received the following percentage of those who voted:

Democrats: Hillary Clinton 39%; Barack Obama 36%; John Edwards 17%; Bill Richardson 5% Dennis Kucinich 1.4 %, Joe Biden, Mike Gravel and Chris Dodd each had votes in the hundreds and were counted as having 0 percent.

Republicans: John McCain 37%; Mitt Romney 32%; Mike Huckabee 11%; Rudy Giuliani 9%; Ron Paul 8%; Fred Thompson 2,059 1%; Duncan Hunter also under 1,000 so listed as 0 percent.

New Hampshire is also called the state that is first in the nation in corporate controlled secret vote counting. Eighty-one percent of New Hampshire ballots are counted in secret by a private corporation named Diebold Election Systems (now known as “Premier”). Diebold is notorious for being an integral part of elections where ballot counts were proven to be false, such as in Ohio. The elections run on the Diebold machines in New Hampshire, are programmed by one company, LHS Associates, based in Methuen, Massachusetts. We know nothing about the people programming these machines, and we know even less about LHS Associates. We know even less about the secret vote counting software used to tabulate 81 percent of the ballots (for more information see www.legitgov.org).

In addition, while pre-election polls were accurate for Republican Senator McCain and other candidates, they were wrong for Barack Obama. Polls consistently had him ahead of Hillary Clinton, both pre-election polls and exit polls. The following information provides a possible explanation for why the polls may have been accurate and the vote count inaccurate. It is estimated that votes for Ron Paul, Republican candidate, were also not accurately counted. While the large majority of the votes are counted by computer, using an optical scan of paper ballots, a portion are counted by hand. Various government reports concerning New Hampshire’s hand counting have also affirmed that it is more accurate and less prone to manipulation than the optical scans and those voting machines that have no paper trail.

For the Democratic Primary, the following information has been reported (at afterdowningstreet.org, for example):

Total Democratic Votes: 286,139

• Hillary Clinton: Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%; Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%

• Barack Obama: Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%; Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%

• Machine vs. Hand: Clinton: +4.709% (13,475 votes) Obama: 2.308% (-6,604 votes).

For the Republican primary, the following information has been reported:

Total Republican Votes: 236,378

• Mitt Romney: Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%; Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%

• Ron Paul: Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%; Hand Counted Paper -Ballots: 9.221%

• Machine vs. Hand: Romney: +7.592% (17,946 votes) Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)

While there could be other possible reasons for the discrepancy, given the history of government fraud on vote counts utilizing Diebold, a fraudulent count is certainly one explanation.

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